


Your Love Alone Is Not Enough

by LadyDarkPhoenix (Phoenixfire)



Series: Bucky Barnes Bingo 2019 [2]
Category: Hawkeye (Comics), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death, Depressed Clint Barton, Everyone Needs A Hug, Hiding Medical Issues, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, Suicide Attempt, Suicide Notes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2019-11-16
Packaged: 2020-12-14 23:37:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21024116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoenixfire/pseuds/LadyDarkPhoenix
Summary: In an alternative post Civil War, Clint and Bucky fell in love and tried to make a life together. But then Thanos happened and Clint embraced the darkness within himself trying to cope with all his loss.This is how after Bucky returned, Clint still can't cope with what happened and who he's become. How even though he seems to have it all, his own mind is his now his greatest enemy. Bucky tries to help but how do you help someone that doesn't believe he should be saved?





	1. Darkness Inside

**Author's Note:**

> This is a deeply personal story about the other side of dealing with depression and what it might be like to give in to the idea that the path Clint takes is the right one.
> 
> I'm not saying that it is in the slightest, I've fought this battle for decades and have been lucky to find it within myself to keep fighting. To let that little painful bit of hope in in the moment to see what might come after. To believe in those people that want to see me around, even when my mind is telling me otherwise.
> 
> If you're feeling like Clint, please reach out for help. There are resources and people that want to help if you let them. Don't give up hope.

Clint was huddled on the couch in the apartment he shared with his boyfriend, nails digging angry red lines in his forearms because he couldn't find enough energy at the moment to find something that would bring the needed quiet to his overly loud brain. Everything should be good now that everyone who'd been taken in the snap was back, Bucky was back but after losing Natasha and Tony and thinking back on everything he'd done over the years between Clint couldn't help but blame himself for so much.

They'd gotten close after Steve had broken Clint out of The Raft and Bucky had come out of cryo. As different as they seemed from first glance, there was some random but specific shared experiences that bonded them first as friends and then lovers. Clint had used his skills working with animals on the farm and at the circus to help Bucky tend the goats on the land T'Challa had given them, enjoying the simplicity of the time they spent together but like most good things in his life, it didn't last. A few years together was all they had before everything fell apart, before the world came crashing back in with the call of duty to protect innocent people from something evil. 

When Shuri and T'Challa had come with an arm for Bucky and a bow for him, Clint knew something big was happening. He hadn't expected Thanos and the loss they suffered. He'd been tasked with helping protect Shuri and the scientists from attack as they worked on Vision. Not that it ended up being much in the end as he watched Vision leave to go to Wanda in a sacrifice play and others around him turn to dust. Clint had held out hope that he would get lucky but Barton luck didn't work like that. Bucky had been lost along with so many others that he broke. What was the point in being good and fighting the good fight if everyone you got close to died?

Clint wasn't proud of what he'd done after. While everyone else was banding together to fix and heal, he'd gone off on a bloody mission of revenge. So many good people were lost that day while so many bad ones lived he'd lost it, painting a bloody trail around the globe in an attempt to balance the scales. There was no thought to what he'd done aside from pain over losing the man he'd come to love and so many others besides. It wasn't fair that those scum got to live when so many others were gone that the murder of them didn't feel like a big deal in the moment. Clint was lost and feeling alone, he didn't want what few friends he had to see him giving in to the dark urges that had gotten him on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s radar in the first place. The darkness inside his head that made killing easy because if he didn't turn it towards some goal, Clint knew he'd turn it on himself. It was what had been used by others in the past to manipulate him into crimes; he just used it for himself now.

When Natasha had found him with some form of a plan to get back what they'd lost, he hadn't wanted to believe her. Clint knew having hope after everything would hurt much more after letting the dark take him over because after everything it would still be part of him no matter what the final outcome. Coming out of it almost killed him the last time even with help, he wasn't sure he could hold himself together enough this time to even try. Then they'd succeeded and Bucky was back but the darkness was still inside him, still eating away at what he'd wanted because Clint had let it take over and it didn't want to leave.


	2. My Mission, My Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky's pov as he tries to help Clint cope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the Bucky Barnes Bingo square B3- Mission

Bucky walked into the twilight dark apartment to find Clint on the couch scratching at himself. He'd only been gone an hour to pick up his boyfriend's medications and to get a few groceries for the week so they didn't have to rely on take out to feed themselves. It wasn't anything new though, Clint had been in a downward spiral for a long time now and Bucky heard what had happened during his absence from the man himself. He knew a thing or two about feeling guilt for actions but nothing about the illness his love suffered.

Bucky sat the grocery bags on the kitchen island but kept the small white bag containing the latest attempts at pharmaceutically helping Clint regulate his moods and got a glass of water. Since everything was returning to normal, his other half seemed to slide deeper into his depression. The acts he committed weighing heavily on his conscious on top of everything else fueled the episode that Thanos had triggered when he'd taken everything and everyone Clint loved from his life. Between Bucky disappearing, the incidents with his bad coping skills, and losing Natasha so half of all living creatures could return it had been hard on the archer. Bucky could only helplessly watch and try to help as the man he loved seemed to slip further and further away from him as the illness inside his mind pulled the once happy man into a shell of the former person he'd been. 

He went over, setting the glass and bag on the coffee table before gently taking the wrist of the hand currently digging deep lines into the flesh of the other arm to prevent any more harm, almost relieved that was all that had happened in his absence. Bucky was constantly reminded of the fact Clint felt the need to purge himself of the bad thoughts in his head by the number of wounds and scars marking the others body. He'd hidden their weapons as well as the sharper kitchen utensils to try and relieve some of the temptation but somehow Clint always found a way.

"Hey there," Bucky spoke quietly as Clint's far away gaze struggled to focus on him. "Got your new pills to try. Why don't you take one now so it might start helping?"

Clint didn't say anything, just sat up and mechanically did as he was told. Putting the pill in his mouth and washing it down without so much as a fight anymore. Bucky was pretty sure it was a side effect of the last time he'd had to put Clint into involuntary inpatient treatment because he'd found him on the edge of the building's roof contemplating going over the edge. The doctors were trying to help the hero with their drugs and therapy sessions but nothing seemed to be working. It had been almost five years since everything went down, so many different pills, shots, and treatments that left Clint drained and clinging to Bucky after as he relived the horrors living inside his mind that the former assassin wondered if he was being selfish instead of helping.

It hurt to feel like he was forcing Clint to stay with him when all he wanted to do was let go but Bucky had lost enough people over his life to forces beyond his control that he was more afraid not to fight lest he could have done something than he was of overstepping. This was his new personal mission, to help save Clint from himself if it was the last thing he did. If his boyfriend wouldn't fight for himself then he'd just have to try to fight for him in this.


	3. What Are We Fighting For?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint wonders if the fight is worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Winterhawk bingo square G2- PTSD

The new meds made Clint exhausted. All he wanted to do was sleep, nevermind never wanting to get out of bed anyway, but he found himself more willing to give in to fatigue because it meant less time awake to deal with having to be alive. Bucky's attempts to get him interested in doing activities Clint supposed were innocent enough but between just feeling tired, his chest tightening in fear and the overwhelming need to punish himself for entertaining the thought of going out where anyone related to someone he might have killed could see him pretending to be happy and normal just had him fleeing to the safety of a different room every time it was brought up. 

The doctors had given him all sorts of diagnoses, saying with work he could possibly lead a normal life one day but Clint couldn't see the point in it. Everything he'd lived through, everything he'd done, what made them think he deserved the life they kept telling him he could live when he knew what he was capable of? He'd been born into a life of pain and suffering, inflicted pain and suffering on others, wanted to inflict more on himself because of it, that was all there was to his life so why pretend there could be more to life than that?

The only good thing about the meds was they seemed to take some of the nightmares away. Clint found himself seeing flashes of what he'd been through when he closed his eyes taking away the refuge sleep used to be for him when life got to be too much. It was hard having to pretend to sleep for Bucky's sake because if he didn't then his boyfriend would wake to keep him company and with the demons in his brain, Clint didn't want to take any rest from him if he could help it. 

Deep down he knew Bucky loved him, but at the moment Clint felt like more of a burden than a necessary part of a functional relationship. He gave as much as he could in little ways to try to show how much he appreciated the other man's devotion to him but it never felt like enough to repay the debt that seemed to grow the more care the soldier gave. He didn't know why Bucky stayed when all he seemed to do was force him to take his medication, remind him to do the most basic self care, and make sure he didn't try to kill himself again when all Clint could give him back was occasional hugs, cuddles and murmured I love yous on the rare days when he could appreciate everything being done for him. Those days were also the ones that he could manage himself for a while and think maybe he could learn to live again but then something would happen and trigger another downward spiral so it felt like it was all for nothing.

They called it PTSD, depression and other words but it just made Clint feel weak, useless. What use did the world have for a hero that life had left so broken that he could barely leave the house? What right did he have to lay all his shit on a man that life treated worse but seemed to have everything together? What was the point of fighting when he'd done so much wrong that he'd never be able to erase it with some grand sacrifice like Natasha and Tony? Well, there was one way Clint could think of but the consensus of those around him was that wasn't a path he was allowed to take if the constant revoking of his freedom was any indication but maybe there could be a way for him to find peace if he played his cards right. He'd just have to tap into all his training but there might be a way he could pull it off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long to post. It's the time of year where my brain just takes a nosedive and functioning is hard, writing doubly so. Thanks for anyone that sticks with me through this, I want to get this out but it might be start and stop for a while. 
> 
> I do appreciate everyone that leaves kudos and comments, they do help keep things going.


End file.
